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Chinese Woman Electrocuted by iPhone 4 Likely Used Unauthorized Charger
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Isn't this a bit sloppy to use the word electrocution? Surely it only becomes this if he dies.
"A second iPhone related electrocution has also been reported (via ZDNet), involving a man who was injured while connecting his iPhone 4 to a third party charger 10 days ago. The man, who is currently in a hospital in Beijing, remains in a coma."
OK, I've always heard "electrocution" used to talk about death or injury from electricity, but dictionary.com and Wikipedia say that it's death from electrocution while the Mac's dictionary says that it's death or injury. Conflict! I'd expect something like this around the word "hipster".
OK, I've always heard "electrocution" used to talk about death or injury from electricity, but dictionary.com and Wikipedia say that it's death from electrocution while the Mac's dictionary says that it's death or injury. Conflict! I'd expect something like this around the word "hipster".
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I know, that is why I was pointing out that it takes less then a volt to do it.
It takes very little current to kill fortuity our skin isn't very conductive.
It's all a matter of perspective my dear. And yes, accidents SHOULD be taken lightly in the sense that people should realize that these things happen EVERY DAY, so you should enjoy the time you have. I've had several people close to me die from tragic events, and I take away from them chance and education. My grandfather drank too much, so I moderate, my grandmother died of lung cancer from smoking, so I don't smoke. It's all about learning from those who passed before you. In this case, I won't be buying knock-off iPhone chargers.
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Maybe for Apple it is but assuming HTC follows the standards for electronic engineering then probably not.
Not particularly surprising, although I'll bet there were other factors as well given that the phone didn't explode--an unbonded AC neutral line that had been pulled high, for example, and she was touching something grounded with her other hand so that current would pass through her heart, which could explain burns on the outside of the phone but the internals being okay.
In any case, stuff like this makes me glad I live in a country where we only have 120V household AC instead of 200V+. Might be a little less efficient for heavy appliances and waste a lot of copper in the walls, but WAY safer. Not that 120V can't kill you too, but it's a whole lot less likely, and from what I've heard from people who've been hit by both (I've fortunately never felt more than 120), 240V will leave you feeling much, much worse.
In any case, stuff like this makes me glad I live in a country where we only have 120V household AC instead of 200V+. Might be a little less efficient for heavy appliances and waste a lot of copper in the walls, but WAY safer. Not that 120V can't kill you too, but it's a whole lot less likely, and from what I've heard from people who've been hit by both (I've fortunately never felt more than 120), 240V will leave you feeling much, much worse.
If you took death lightly you wouldn't be bothered to avoid it. We all die anyways right? But I'm just a daft wanker.
To give just one example, if the charger had put a full 220V AC on the ground line of the charging cable, but didn't have a voltage differential between the ground and 5V power wire, the iPhone itself would see 0V and just think the cable was unplugged, but (assuming the case is grounded through the dock connector--I've never checked) the outside case of the iPhone would be sitting at 220V relative to ground. If it was sitting on a relatively nonconductive surface, nothing would happen.
The woman then touches the phone with, say, her other hand on something grounded--a metal chair touching the floor, for example, or the wall, or even a lamp. Now there's a path for 220V to flow from the case of the iPhone directly through her heart to her other hand. Which stops her heart and kills her.
It's really not particularly difficult to imagine. A properly designed charger (that's what that little "UL" symbol is supposed to mean) would short itself out to the neutral and cause the circuit breaker to trip if such a failure occurred, but a badly designed one, maybe not.
Or there could have been something additionally wrong with the wiring in her house--for example, the neutral wasn't bonded to ground and had gotten pulled high somehow, and the badly-designed charger didn't isolate that.
I once had a broken VCR--major US brand--that had something like 30V AC on the case at any time it was plugged in. A cat had peed in it, of course, but while it SHOULD have just shorted out and protected the user, it failed in such a way as it didn't.
50VDC is the rule of thumb for dry skin, which is why (I assume) the US phone system tops out at 48V. For practical purposes, anything above 30V is considered potentially hazardous. Under that and you can put your hand on it and nothing will happen (which is, again, why most power bricks top out at around 24V).
As you said, even small voltages could kill you, but you'd need to have it going directly through your heart, which would really take some work--extremely unlikely to happen unless you've got needles and are actively trying to do it.
This thread is such a glaring contrast from the previous one, where people were more respectful and averse to poor jokes.
Doesn't surprise me, but be careful with these things!
This is an all to common problem with cheap mains electronics. Most knockoff things that don't draw a lot use cheap dropper circuits that are NOT electrically or mechanically isolated. Wouldn't surprise me if this one expected line and load in a specific configuration. It's sort of like russian roulette with electricity. It could certainly energize the shield and take the path through you when you hold the phone. LED light bulbs can be bad at this too.
This is an all to common problem with cheap mains electronics. Most knockoff things that don't draw a lot use cheap dropper circuits that are NOT electrically or mechanically isolated. Wouldn't surprise me if this one expected line and load in a specific configuration. It's sort of like russian roulette with electricity. It could certainly energize the shield and take the path through you when you hold the phone. LED light bulbs can be bad at this too.
I think it was a combination of both the third party charger and the electrical supply:
Assume that the neutral line lost its ground potential (to which it is normally attached for safety reasons). This would end in a totally floating power supply because the phase line is only referenced to that neutral line. Depending on the type of loads (capacitive, inductive) connected to this crappy power line it is easy to archive a potential of several kilovolts above ground potential.
Assuming now, that the third party charger has no complete galvanic isolation between the primary (power) side and the secondary (5V side), the floating reference potential of a few kV transforms to the secondary side without harming the device itself (this is because the supply voltage across the DC lines is still 5V), only their reference potential is "a bit" higher than normal.
Touching the device now causes the kilovolts potential to be tied to ground again (over your body), so depending on the voltage across your body some type of "compensating current" will flow through your body.
I think original Apple chargers are completely isolated (at least up to 3-5kV), this is why you feel a kind of subtle prickling when you touch an aluminum MacBook depending on your current grounding.
Well this story is just a powerhouse for debate!
We really have sparked up a conversation here!
I doubt Apple will get 'charged' with anything.
This lawsuit will probably be met with a lot of resistance.
The forums are just surging with opinions and puns.
I bet the woman was just shocked by the poor quality of the charger!
I'm done now.
We really have sparked up a conversation here!
I doubt Apple will get 'charged' with anything.
This lawsuit will probably be met with a lot of resistance.
The forums are just surging with opinions and puns.
I bet the woman was just shocked by the poor quality of the charger!
I'm done now.
I only use official chargers. Saving a couple of dollars on a charger when the device costs $600 seems idiotic.
220V primary shorts to the secondary circuit inside the phone, bypassing the transformer, spitting out 220VAC, instead of 5VDC
She's wet, so her skin resistance shoots down due to water passing through skin
She grabs the phone, which is now 220V and grounds herself by touching a pipe, creating a 220V drop across her body
Per Ohm's Law, current passing through her = 220V / 1000 (typical wet skin resistance) = 0.22 Amps. That 0.22 Amps passes through her body via tissues, bloodstream, etc. If >0.017 Amps of that current goes through her heart, she can die
You cannot move 30VDC around the country. High voltage AC is the most effective way of doing this. If you mean once that current gets to the house it is then transformed and rectified then that's another set of challenges.
Might be true but that's a stupid thing to say. When you go to check a conductor you don't use a current clamp you use a voltmeter. You can have a voltage present where there is no current flowing but you can't have it the other way around and most things you'll come across in life are not current limited to 20mA or whatever they say it takes to kill.
Even an RCD is usually set at 30mA, at least in the Uk.